Friday Afternoon Movie: Secret Rulers Of The World

Today has not been a good day. Not. At. All. Usually, you would join your other co-workers around the photocopier, placing bets on which intern can make the most copies of their face without blinking, but you’re in no mood for such frivolities. Today you can only stare at your desk in despair. How much longer can you go on working this soul-sucking job; planted in front of your computer inside the thin, blank walls of your cubicle? What does it even matter? How can you, a single, lowly person, possibly prevail in the face of the worldwide Jewish banking conspiracy? What’s to be done?

The answer, of course, is nothing. Take it from me, an insider who types these words on a golden keyboard while sitting atop a pile of money, sipping from a tall glass of still-warm Christian baby’s blood. Don’t get too down on yourself though. After all it’s Friday. That’s a good thing, right? Sure it is. So why don’t you just ignore the screams of Jessica as her retinas are seared with ultraviolet light and watch some documentaries about a few of the people who may or may not control the world.

That’s right, this week we offer you Secret Rulers of the World, Jon Ronson’s series detailing the puppet masters who work behind the scenes and the lovable loons who strive to expose them. The highlight for me has to be Episode 2, which focuses on David Icke, a man so crazy, it turns out that when he talks about the world being run by “a race of 12 foot, blood-drinking, shape-shifting lizards” he is not making a coded reference to Jews but actually means a race of 12 foot, blood drinking, shape-shifting lizard men. You don’t run into that kind of batshit insanity everyday; especially unaccompanied by an orderly. So enjoy all five episodes; hours of New World entertainment.

Now if you’ll excuse me, my baby’s blood is getting cold.

Friday Afternoon Movie: Dark Side of the Moon

No more meetings. Not one more. If you have to attend one more meeting today you’re going to scream. One more boring, monotonous PowerPoint presentation and you’re going to beat someone to death with their laptop. You’ll feel bad, sure; I mean, it wouldn’t be their fault necessarily, after all no one likes doing PowerPoint presentations — well, everyone except for Tim, that is, but he’s pretty fucking weird to begin with. I mean, remember that time when you walked into the break-room and he was standing there, whispering to the coffee machine and he didn’t even notice your presence because he was so intently whispering and so you cleared your throat and he finally realized there was another person in the room but he didn’t seem embarrassed or anything, just annoyed that someone had interrupted him, and he just sort of gave you a dirty, sideways glance which he kept trained on you for the endless seconds you spent deciding whether you really still wanted coffee, and until you finally backed out of the room at which point you could here him begin whispering again and you were fairly certain you heard your name and the word “whore”? Yeah, that was weird. — it’s just that, if you have to look at one more graph or here the word “actionable” again, you’re gonna snap.

Well relax. Meetings are over for the day. It’s time to chill out, put aside those thoughts of murderous rage, and just wait for that sweet, sweet weekend to roll around. In the meantime, why don’t you take a load off. Take off your shoes, maybe plug in that lava lamp that you got from your secret Santa last Christmas, because now is the time for The Floyd. This week we have Classic Albums: Pink Floyd – The Making of “The Dark Side of the Moon” or, at least, the shorter version for television. Not much to say about this one. It’s the story behind one of the great rock albums of all time as told by Those Who Were There. Containing a bevy of interviews, demo reels, and old footage it’s a journey through the labyrinthine inner workings of manufacturing an album. Bonus clip at the end with an extended look at the single “Money”.

Friday Afternoon Movie: Jesus Camp

It’s been a long, long day. When you haven’t been in meetings you’ve been at your desk alt-tabbing between solitaire and Excel, rearranging your budget so that you’ll be able to afford those sweet zebra-print seat covers you saw on Jalopnik the other day. Well, just stop it. You’ll never be able to afford them and Jalopnik was being ironic anyway. Also, anyone can win at solitaire if they pull one card at a time. Yeesh, have some self-respect. Close Excel and prepare for Friday filmage.

Today: Jesus Camp, a documentary about the now defunct “Kids On Fire School of Ministry”, a Pentecostal summer camp in North Dakota. It follows three children who attended the camp in 2005 where they are taught how to become part of God’s army. A lighthearted tale of willful ignorance and homeschooling, this is the film to show your atheist friends if you wish to see them become apoplectic and jittery with spittle-flecked rage. Or to pass the time while avoiding the siren call of compulsive spending.

Seriously, zebra-print isn’t going to make that ’89 Camry any cooler.

Friday Afternoon Movie: Snow White: A Tale Of Terror

It’s Friday once again and you are mere hours from another glorious weekend of coke and Thai lady-boys. Still, it might as well be days as summers are slow and your cubicle is, unfortunately, adjacent to Carol’s. This is unfortunate as Carol talks, ceaselessly, about her eight (yes, eight) Pomeranians; a torrent of gibberish spewed in an unyielding stream in your direction. All day it’s stories about anthropomorphized facial expressions, idiotic tricks, and unfortunate bowel movements punctuated by requests for you to look at a funny picture she took of one of them wearing a doggie sweater or galoshes. You wonder how Carol’s husband feels about living with a yammering pack of fur with teeth; maybe he too looks forward to cocaine fueled weekends. You also wonder how long until the little bastards get tired of those sweaters and revolt, rending poor Carol limb from limb.

There are better things to occupy your mind with than thoughts such as these. There are movies and I am here to help you drown out Carol before you turn to her and slowly, deliberately puncture your ear drums with a letter opener. This week, its Snow White: A Tale of Terror the 1997 horror movie based on the Grimm Brothers’s tale. Starring Sigourney Weaver, Sam Neill, Monica Keena and the greaser guy from The Shawshank Redemption, this is a bloodier and more realistic version of the classic tale, adapted most famously by Walt Disney (and less famously by Rammstein), by which I mean that no one spontaneously bursts into song. Despite its slightly over the top subtitle, it’s actually not that bad, bearing more of a resemblance to the source material than the animated film, by which I mean that there is a fair amount of violence while simultaneously lacking the dwarf spanking and drugs angle of Rammstein’s version.

Regardless of which is your preferred Snow White, watching Sigourney Weaver get her evil on has got to beat listening to the story about how dog #2 shit on the carpet yesterday, right?

Friday Afternoon Movie: The Other Loch Ness Monster

Perhaps, like me, you find yourself in the midst of a tedious post-lunch session of completing TPS reports or contemplating non-work related questions like if science will be able to conquer the problem of cooking pancakes in space or, perhaps, you are simply staring blankly into space, a thin thread of drool dangling from your chin. If so, cheer up. No one reads those TPS reports anyway and spacecakes will be more wondrous than you could ever imagine. Now, wipe the drool off your chin and prepare for the wonder of internet archived filmic majesty.

Today’s offering is the short television documentary Aleister Crowley: The Other Loch Ness Monster, detailing the history of Boleskine House, where once Wickedest Man in the World and occult obsessed trust fund baby Aleister Crowley intended to perform the ritual found in The Book of the Sacred Magick of Abra-Melin the Mage, in order to call forth his guardian angel. The six month operation required Crowley to summon a number of demons and attempt to turn them towards good. However, he was called away from Boleskine House in order to help his mentor — and then-head of The Hermetic Order of the Golden DawnSamuel Liddell, leaving the ritual unfinished and, more importantly, the evil spirits he called forth unbanished. He did not banish them! They are still there! Nessie might be one of them! Jimmy Page’s friend totally heard one outside his door one time!

It’s crazy, crazy shit, yet completely entertaining. Besides it will eat up some time between now and five o’clock.